Ibruprofen/Paracetamol tolerance Sqad

[237SJ]

Hi Sqad,
Last night I had a customer who had a headache so I gave him two paracetamol. He said he needed 3 for a headache and as he was a doctor I gave them to him (wouldn`t have been allowed to otherwise)
I got talking and told him I find imbuprofen works for me and he said what you say - that you need about 3 tablets for it to do any good. I have only ever needed one 200mg ibuprofen tablet for pain and it does the trick.
Do you think you can get a tolerance to it so that you need more and more tablets to cure the pain?

[mike11111]

Although I am not a doctor my own experience tells me that the more often a drug is used the greater the tolerance built up, so gradually larger doses are required to achieve the desired effect. I have been told that the cause of death in most patients suffering from terminal painful ailments is the side effects of ever-increasing doses of morphine, which depress the central nervous system and eventually lead to pneumonia. The severity of the pain also dictates the dosage necessary to achieve relief.

[237SJ]

Well I always like to take the minimum dose that I can but I wonder if the tablets work faster the more you take. For example, I take one ibuprofen and it takes 20 minutes to work but if I take two it works in 10 minutes and as I`m not prepared to wait and find out, I assume I needed 2 tablets because the pain`s gone. Just a though I was pondering on at work (nothing else to think about in the middle of the night)!

[Sqad]

237SJ,....firstly, I agree with your doctor friend a lot of scare mongering is goinb on with Ibuprofen both on the dose and the side effects.Yes, it may cause bleeding, but the problem is mainly with ling term use, usually high doses and often with patients with Osteo and Rheumatoid arthritis. I am not saying that it cannot cause problems at the onset of medication, but in my opinion that is very overplayed.

On the continent one can get Ibuprofen 600mgm tablets.

To answer your question, whether one can get tolerance depends upon the disorder for which the tablets are taken. For example if they are needed for a sprained ankle of#r a migraine, something that will be short lived, then i do not think that tolerance is an issue.However tolerance may play a part should the pain relief be required for a chronic condition e.g Osteo Arthritis.

[China Doll]

If I get a particularly bad headache then I take three. When I was in a lot of pain last year, I would quite often take to profens and two paracetamols.

[anneasquith]

the doctor was a customer ? im being nosey, what do you do ?

[dennisb66]

"the doctor was a customer ? im being nosey, what do you do?"

Publican ?